“Oh, no, lordship, I never said that. What has come is not from Dantirya Sambail but from his camp, and it is not a message but a messenger. May I ask him to come in here, my lord? He’s waiting just outside.”
More and more mystifying. Prestimion assented with a perfunctory wave of his hand.
Dekkeret went to the door and called someone in from the hall.
A boy, it was, fifteen or perhaps sixteen years old, slender and hard-eyed and self-possessed. There was something oddly familiar about his features—those thin lips, that narrow jaw. He looked like a street-beggar of some sort, deeply tanned, dressed in little more than tattered rags, his cheeks and forehead marked by the scars of newly healing scratches as though he had been scrambling through brambles not very long before. Dangling from his left hand was a bulging burlap sack.
“My lord,” said Dekkeret, “this is Dinitak Barjazid. Venghenar Barjazid’s son.”
Prestimion made a spluttering sound of astonishment. “If this is some sort of joke, Dekkeret—”
“Not at all, lordship.”
Prestimion stared at the boy, who was looking back at him with a curious expression that seemed to be compounded equally of awe and defiance. And—yes, by the Divine—he was plainly his father’s son! These were the elder Barjazid’s features that Prestimion saw before him. All of Venghenar Barjazid’s savage determination and fiery drive were mirrored in the taut lines of the boy’s face. But that face lacked some key aspects of his father’s. It was insufficiently crafty, Prestimion thought; it did not project the disingenuous subtlety of Venghenar Barjazid; there was no glint of treachery in the boy’s eyes. Time, no doubt, would put those things there. Or perhaps old Barjazid had created an improved model of himself in this boy, one that knew better how to conceal the darkness within.
“Will you explain?” Prestimion said, after a time. “Or shall we just go on standing here like this?”
But there was no rushing Dekkeret, it seemed. He was evidently determined to do this at his own rhythm. “I know this boy well, my lord. I met him for the first time in Suvrael, on that journey I took through the desert, the time when his father amused himself by playing with my mind. And when I seized the dream-stealing machine from the father and said I would bring it—and him—to Castle Mount to show to the Coronal and the Council, it was this boy who urged old Barjazid to cooperate. ‘We should go,’ he said. ‘It is our great moment of opportunity.’ ”
“An opportunity to carry their mischief right into the Castle, eh?”
“No, lordship. Not at all. The old man, my lord, is a rascal. He has nothing but evil on his mind. The boy you see here is something quite different.”
“Is he, now?”
“Let him tell you himself,” said Dekkeret.
Prestimion felt his eyes beginning to sag shut. What he really wanted more than anything was to have these two go away and permit him to get some sleep. But no: no, he must get to the heart of this mystery. He indicated to young Barjazid that he should speak.
“My lord—” the boy began.
He looked toward Prestimion, then to Dekkeret, then to Prestimion again. It was curious, Prestimion thought, how his face changed as he turned from one to the other. For Prestimion he donned a look of deep respect, almost subservience. But it was a desultory and mechanical expression, a subject’s automatic acknowledgment that he was in the presence of the Coronal Lord of Majipoor and nothing more; and Prestimion thought he saw a subtext even of resentment there, a hidden unwillingness to concede full acceptance of the power that the Coronal indeed wielded over him.
When Dinitak Barjazid looked at Dekkeret, though, a glow came into the boy’s eyes that spoke of sheer worship. He seemed mesmerized by Dekkeret’s personal force, his charisma, his vibrant strength. Perhaps it is because they are closer in age, Prestimion thought. He sees me as a member of some senior generation. But it was a distressing demonstration of the erosion of his own youthful vigor that just these few years at the summit of power had brought about.
“My lord,” the young Barjazid was saying, “when my father and I came to the Castle, it was my hope that we could offer the dream-machine to you, that we could enroll ourselves in your service and make ourselves of value. But through some error we were imprisoned instead. This left my father greatly embittered, though I said again and again that it was a mistake.”
Yes, Prestimion thought. And I could tell you whose mistake it was, too.
“Then we escaped. It was through the help of an old friend of my father’s that we did. But the Procurator of Ni-moya’s people were also involved. He has his influence among the Castle guards, you know.” Prestimion exchanged a glance with Dekkeret at that, but said nothing. “And so it was to the Procurator, who seemed to be our only ally, to whom we fled,” the boy continued. “To his camp in the Stoienzar Peninsula. And there we learned that it is the Procurator’s plan to wage war against your lordship and against his majesty the Pontifex, and make himself the master of the world.”
That phrase had a fine resonant sound, Prestimion thought: master of the world. He speaks very well, Prestimion told himself. No doubt the boy’s been rehearsing this little speech for weeks.
But it was a struggle to pay attention. Another wave of weariness had come over him. He realized that he had begun rocking rhythmically back and forth on his feet in an effort to keep himself awake.
—"My lord?” the boy said. “Are you not well, my lord?”
“Just a little tired, is all,” he said. Mustering all his self-control, he brought himself up toward something close to wakefulness again. It was very shrewd of the boy to have noticed, in the midst of his own narrative, that I was flagging, Prestimion thought. He poured a drink of water for himself. “How old did you say you were, boy?”
“Sixteen next month, sir.”
“Sixteen next month. Interesting. All right, go on. Dantirya Sambail wants to be master of the world, you were saying.”
“I said to my father when we heard that, ‘There is no future for us in this place. We will only find trouble here.’ And also I said to him, ‘We should not be part of this rebellion. The Coronal will destroy this man Dantirya Sam-bail, and we will be destroyed along with him.’ But my father is full of anger and bitterness. It is not that he is an evil man so much as he is an angry one. His soul is full of hatred. I could not tell you why that is. When I said that we should leave the camp of Dantirya Sambail, he struck me.”
“Struck you?”
Prestimion could see the fury in the boy’s eyes, even now.
“Indeed, my lord. Lashed out at me the way you might lash out at a beast that had nipped at your foot. Told me I was a fool and a child; told me I was incapable of seeing where our true advantage lay; told me—well, no matter what he told me, my lord. It was nothing very pretty. That night I left the Procurator’s camp and slipped away through the jungle.” Again the boy glanced at Dekkeret, that same worshipful glance. “I had heard, my lord, that Prince Dekkeret was in Stoien city. I decided that I would go to Prince Dekkeret and enroll in his service.”
“In his service,” Prestimion said. “Not mine, but his, eh? How flattering that must sound to you, Dekkeret. Prince Dekkeret, I should say. Since everyone seems to think you’re a prince, I suppose I’ll have to make you one when we get back to the Castle, won’t I?”
A look of shock appeared on Dekkeret’s usually stolid face. “My lord, I have never aspired—”
“No. No. Forgive my sarcasm, Dekkeret.” I must be very tired indeed, Prestimion thought, to be saying such things as that. Once more he glanced toward Dinitak Barjazid. “And so. To continue. You made your way through the jungle—”